Could Probiotics Help With Weight Loss?

In the headlines, probiotics are everywhere these days! While they may not be the answer for all, they can play a vital role in healthy living.

We’ve all got colonies of bacteria in our gut, known as the microbiome. They help us digest food, support overall health, and make certain nutrients. Taking probiotics can boost levels of the beneficial bacteria in our bellies, with positive results for health and well-being. But what role do probiotics play in weight loss?

Probiotics and Weight Loss

Of hundreds of types of bacteria living in our digestive tract, it turns out some of them might make or break your weight loss goals. Researchers are increasingly finding that overweight people have different compositions of gut bacteria than those who can stay at a healthy weight. Maintaining a healthy gut flora might just be the key to reaching your optimal size.

Here’s how probiotics may influence weight loss:

Food is absorbed in the digestive tract, and probiotics may help maintain healthy intestinal inflammation, thus improving digestion. Healthy digestion is good news for your weight loss goals.
Certain nutrients that are needed for a healthy metabolism (turning calories from carbs, fat, and protein into energy) are produced by beneficial gut bugs.
Probiotics can keep your intestines from absorbing too much excess fat. However, eating small amounts of healthy fats in moderation is preferable to overeating and relying on probiotics!
Sugary, fatty foods – the same foods that lead to weight gain – promote the growth of bad bacteria. Researchers can’t conclusively say whether bad bacteria promote weight gain, but there’s a correlation between unhealthy eating, bad bacteria, and weight gain.

Tips for a Healthy Weight Loss Program

How does this info help you?

Supplementing with probiotics can help you shift the bacteria living in your digestive tract from the unhealthy ones connected with occasional weight gain to more beneficial strains. One study showed that the probiotic Lactobacillus rhamnosus helped women double their weight loss compared to women who took a placebo, and they were able to sustain the weight loss.

Work a probiotic formula that contains Lactobacillus rhamnosus into your weight loss program.
Add probiotic-rich foods to your diet, such as unpasteurized sauerkraut, kefir, or yogurt. If you’re choosing yogurt, make sure the package tells you how many live cells are in the yogurt.
Be sure to eat lots of veggies to up your intake of healthy nutrients
Include prebiotics in your diet. Prebiotics such as PGX* feed the good bacteria so that your microbiome will flourish.
Avoid excessive intake of alcohol, sugars, saturated and trans fats, and processed foods.
Get moving! Exercise can promote a healthy microbiome just as much as diet, research shows [1]

Probiotics are a great tool to support your healthy weight loss program!

*Drink additional water (8 fl. oz.) after ingesting PGX®. If you are taking medications, take one hour prior to or two hours after taking PGX®

References:

[1] Kang, S.S., Jeraldo, P.R., Kurti, A., Miller, M.E., Cook, M.D., et al. (2014). Diet and exercise orthogonally alter the gut microbiome and reveal independent associations with anxiety and cognition. Mol Neurodegener, 13;9:36.